


Common Tongue

by Coldest_Fire



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Consensual Blood Drinking, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pre-Canon, give her nice things okay?, post-prague, spike takes care of Dru after the mob hurts her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-15 16:00:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29438655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coldest_Fire/pseuds/Coldest_Fire
Summary: After they tortured her in Prague, spike takes care of DrusillaThe man who took her said she only spoke in pain. Seemed it was the only language anyone cared to use with her. Lied—told her it was all she felt. Not in a while. Not since that night she met spike.
Relationships: Drusilla/Spike (BtVS)
Kudos: 7





	Common Tongue

She was on her feet, even if he’d be cross. She had to keep the stars hiding fires—even if the fires already scraped through flesh and bone. Her legs hardly knew to hold her, but of course, she’d done it all before. Dragged herself across the floor by her nails, begging deliverance. Much too loud for tonight. Deliverance would wait.

Her vision tilted and rippled. Her legs almost capsizing. There was a mirror in the corner of the room—sinful thing. It told the cruelest stories. Her Spike had blindfolded it so it would stop staring, but Dru had never been one to spare herself any cruelty, nor the gaze of condemning eyes in glass. The sheet came off it with a gentle flourish, fluttering to the floor. No more shroud for either of them.

There he was behind her. She looked at him first. Her spike. Hair white like moonlight, nestled in the sheets. Saving grace, and lover. The skies were red as blood, and dark as spinning ash when he was gone from her. She couldn’t feel him for moments, but she’d seen the stake pierce. Naughty pixies never filled the gap—never told her where.

Half an inch from his heart, a red, blooming mark. Like roses made in flesh. She’d helped him pick out the splinters. She should have known all along that no one could take her poet’s heart. Hers…

There was a healed over scar over her sternum. Rippled edges. Claws. It happened in the church. Everything hurt. She didn’t have it in her to make it stop. Silvered bite marks and slashes that came out in the moonlight. Her neck, and her chest, and her ribs, stomach… But that wasn’t what they’d kept from her.

The people nailed up their saviour, and all those prayers because of the holes they left in his hands. All those people were silent. Her shoulders, arms and legs were playing tricks, wrapped in gauze. Her own flesh hiding from her. He’d be cross at her if she peeked, but she was never good at being the one in the blindfold. She liked to see.

She unpicked the knot over her shoulder, and watched flurry of white, dancing, spinning, twisting. She matched him. His heart. Her arm. Her fingers traced the dark scabs, resisting every urge to rip them. Her skin was red angry around them. It forgot what she’d seen before this. Forgot it wasn’t allowed ot hurt after Angel—nothing could. Shoulder. Two in the forearm. Two in the upper arm. She couldn’t see through her hand anymore, even when she looked. The bones crunched and popped when she flexed her fingers, and she gasped, a wave passing through her.

She nearly fell. No time. Her fingers tore at the rest of the gauze. She had to see. Her thighs. Her calves. Her other arm. She was marked by torn flesh like his—roses ripped into her with thorns. He said she only spoke in pain. Seemed it was the only language anyone cared to use with her. Lied—told her it was all she felt. Not in a while. Not since that night. All his thorns couldn’t make the whole world cloud red. Couldn’t pour blood onto her eyes. Couldn’t make her heart forget what there was that wasn’t pain.

He was right there in bed—saving grace. He’d always been one to try to stop the pain. With him there were other things. Love. Joy. Pleasure, even. With any number of places the stars could whip her off to—past, and futures, and fancies, he kept her present, in this body, even when it bled. He kept her when she couldn’t take it. There he was. Promising her every star out of the sky, until the moon turned to dust and the sun to ashes.

She didn’t recognize herself from his eyes. Scarred. Bloody. This wasn’t what he’d seen. Her eyes didn’t have hints, nor her face, no matter how long she screamed at it, that remained impassive. Lips set. Eyes of glass. Chest unrising. Still. She was dead. Why was she in here? What did they have left to tell her? She’d already learned the pain. He was silent. He didn’t move.

He was dead. She was why.

She needed to see him Move. The stars kept telling her his name, choruses of gleeful voices. His names. All of them. They’d chorused her name, and now it was his. He needed to be alive.

There was no voice in her throat. She turned to take a step, and the bone screamed. It was like the holy water. She couldn’t stay standing. She heard herself hit the ground, but was too distracted searching, combing every name in the stars for his.

Miss Edith

Anne

Sister Mary

Uncle Robert

Father…Father Andrew

The names were snakes, letters and sounds twisting away from her. She couldn’t hold them. Where was he?

“Love?” He was up on his feet immediately when he heard the thump, seeing a pile of discarded gauze, and Drusilla, naked and crumpled, staring up at the ceiling intently, as though her stars were telling her something.

His eyes held so many words she didn’t doubt would spill out the corners and onto his papers. Beautiful, beautiful man. He moved. He was not in the stars. She pressed her hand over his chest—her hand matched. She wished she’d taken each of them away. They hurt him. Pain wasn’t her language. It wasn’t all she knew, but she knew it better than he. “They didn’t take your heart from me,” she reminded herself, looking into his eyes, trying to find him in them.

“Never,” he promised, and she found him. He was so close to her, like his heart was trying to escape into her hand. “Love, you’re hurt,” he reached under her, and picked her up slowly, as though he was afraid he’d jostle apart her pieces. When he set her down to the bed, he was only gone long enough to procure the gauze. She supposed he didn’t need to See. He hadn’t last time.

He was gentle. He wrapped the gauze slowly up her shin, then tied it off below the knee, “we will get you strong again, pet,” he spoke aloud, and she asked the stars. She had flickers—she wasn’t strong enough for more. Too full of hurt for it to consume her. A dagger through her hand. A devil in the church. Her legs, holding two. She had flickers. He wrapped her other shin, then started on her thighs. His fingers were so gentle, over flesh and scars. He was the only person who could touch without telling her story.

Another pretty bow at the top, and another. Were they pretty presents? Would they be when he unwrapped her?

She could imagine.

He took her hand, and smoothed her fingers together before wrapping them and her palm, and kissing the back of the wrappings. Her left hand—still had his mother’s ring on the finger. She hadn’t taken it off since the night he first gave it to her. He’d have been furious if they’d taken it off her. Then her right hand. Forearms. Upper arms. Shoulders. All the while, he hummed to her. Quite the singer. She was once—birds in cages need to be entertained.

He took her into his arms when he was done. No more time to creep to the mirror. “You haven’t eaten,” he trailed off, and she shook her head. She couldn’t imagine the taste of it. Copper. Pain. Teeth sinking. The only language, screamed and gasped. She didn’t want to speak it.

“Not ready for the common tongue,” she admitted, resting her head against he is chest, her bandaged hands running up and down his chest, like they were trying to memorize him.

“You’ve taken mine before,” he offered, “I had that shopkeeper earlier, and the man renting this room. I won’t run out. No common tongue. No violent delights, just me.” She liked the way his chest vibrated when he spoke, her fingers now cupping the scar she’d left on his neck. “I never mind it when you take me in,” he plead.

“Do you want it?” she asked, not because she didn’t know, but because she had before. He always chose. She turned her head to kiss him. His chest. His shoulder. The base of his neck. Slow, open mouthed kisses, until she was at the scars she’d given him when she took him. Then he was in her mouth. A rush. Her Spike. He tasted like starlight. Like moments she forgot not to breathe. Like burying glass and looking out at the world without it digging into her after all those years. She watched his through her eyes, heard him, felt him. Drinking him In was swimming through all his pretty words, and prettier feelings. It was life through art, like gentle paint brush strokes. Not masterpieces but pieces lovingly worked, stroke for stroke in the colours the moon offered.

His heart wasn’t there for them to take. She was drinking it in. Drinking in his heart, which he’d always willingly give her. It was as though it still beat for her, their little secret. She promised she wouldn’t tell, but she let it sing to her, head on his chest. She kissed his chest with bloody lips, kissed his aching heart to rest. Her felt strong in her. Felt like life shed slots. He was right. He was always right. And then she was in his arms, his still heart still loud enough to block out the stars, and the scars. He spoke in words that man would never fathom. His heart, and the tears in his eyes, his blood and his lips. Their language alone.

She understood.


End file.
